


Rizzoli's Bookstore

by enbyofdionysus



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:24:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enbyofdionysus/pseuds/enbyofdionysus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A relationship always has to begin somewhere. For Nico, that beginning happens to take place in the gay erotic photography section in an Italian bookshop on West 57th Street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rizzoli's Bookstore

**Author's Note:**

> Future AU in which it's been four years since the war with Gaea has ended. Jason is dead in this 'verse.

Given New York City’s population of 8 million people, it was logical for Camp Half-Blood to be located on the Long Island Sound; the smell of the mortals masked the smell of the some hundred demigods that lived there in refuge from the monsters outside. However, the Camp’s location also seemed like a trap. New York City was expensive and being able to take part in camp activities while attempting to live a normal – well, “normal” – life outside of it was nearly impossible. It was even more impossible when half the campers didn’t attend mortal schools in order to build a resume that wasn’t fabricated by Chiron just to get a job.

Luckily for Nico Di Angelo, old Italians tend to look out for their own and he managed to land himself as a cashier at Rizzoli’s on West 57th.

 

To be honest, if it weren’t for the Camp, Nico wouldn’t be in the city at  _all_. There was something about it he didn’t like that he could never quite put his finger on, but at the same time he felt some kind of strange, exhilarating love for it. You could get lost in everything and that was both the great and terrifying thing about it. Just walking on the streets could fill you with confidence; the assertive energy of the people pulled you forward. Traffic made sense and everything moved like clockwork.

But something still unnerved him and he felt it most when he looked out his window at the world from his small apartment on Gay St (Rachel has thought it would be ironic and, in fact, it was  _ironically_ ironic; there was nothing prideful about it. Nico watched a man bring his bulldog out to pee in the street everyday). From up there, everyone walking the street corners clutching their coats and Starbucks were nothing but dots. And that’s all that Nico was in the sea of 8 million people in that giant city: a dot.

“No wonder the gods pay no attention to us,” Nico muttered.

“What?”

The woman’s voice brought him back to reality and Nico pulled his eyes away from the front shop window. Drops of water has been consistently falling from the orange metal rafter outside and Nico wasn’t sure if they were for the construction going on or it was some kind of new, ugly industrial architecture. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What’s up?”

Salina gave him an amused look and set a stack of books beside the register. “You’ve been kind of out of it lately. You okay? Everything okay at home?”

Her characteristic concern for his well-being always made him feel a little warmer despite the fact that she was only a few years older than he was and nearly a foot or so shorter. “Everything’s fine.”

She leaned forward and pressed her finger to his nose so it flattened. “Is it a boy?” Nico scoffed so hard it hurt his throat and Salina made a face, pulling her hand away. “Don’t give me that. You’re a good looking dude. Finding a boy should be easy for you.”

“Not in this city,” Nico said. He took the top book off the stack and turned it so he could read the title. He blinked twice. “ _Manatomy?_ ”

“It’s a photography book,” Salina said.

“New stock?”

“Mmhm.”

“These would be on the third floor.”

Salina pushed out her lower lip.

“… I am  _not_ stocking them for you.”

“Come  _on!_ You’re a man. These little arms can’t lift heavy things.”

“That’s offensive to every woman within our vicinity. But if we’re going off of stereotypes, aren’t you a lesbian? Do the heavy lifting yourself.”

“ _Per favore, mio bello ragazzo?_ ”

Nico pulled a face. “ _Che ‘ragazzo’?_ ”

“You know what I mean. Please?”

He stared at her, eyes stone, but no one could resist the Salina pout. Never trust a chubby girl in a pink Victoria’s Secret hoodie. They will end you with their cute. “Fine, but take the register. Vitti will kill me if I leave it empty.”

Salina snorted, moving around the counter to take his post. “No she wouldn’t. She loves you.”

“You’re thinking of Gianni. I don’t think Vitti could ever love a Northerner.”

“That’s not true. What about Giorgio?”

Nico gave a shudder. “I never want to hear that story again and if you want me to put these upstairs for you, then you won’t tell it now.” He picked up the stack of books with a grunt and maneuvered his way around the front table to the staircase at the side of the shop.

“So one time on my Saturday shift,” Salina began.

“Salina, I swear to the gods.”

“Gods?” she asked. “I never knew you were pagan.”

“Romulus and Remus were.”

“The Pope’s not.”

Nico gave a dry laugh, then huffed as he adjusted the weight of the book in his hands and made his way to the second floor and across the room to the next staircase. Gianni glanced up at him from behind the little desk amidst the small corridor, but said nothing. It had been a relatively slow day and they were all ready to lock up despite the twenty minutes remaining until 7.

In Nico’s defense, puffing and grunting his way to the third floor, the caffeine in his system had left his body three hours ago, so it totally wasn’t a lack of training that week that had him sweating by the time he made it to the Photography section. He just managed to nudge his way by a forty year old man with his face in a pin-up girl poster book with a gentle “excuse me” before letting the book stack hit against a stand with a loud  _thump_  and a relieved gasp.

Someone made an amused sound beside him. “Heavy?”

Nico gave a laugh in response, panting softly. “Yeah. I–” He glanced up and for a split second he thought it was Jason Grace, but the curls told him he was mistaken. It was a young guy, early twenties, with a round face and eyes dark circles couldn’t quite keep from smiling. Nico cleared his throat. “I was moving them for a coworker. Re-stocking. Ah…”

He looked up at the Photography section they stood in front of and right at that moment the  _Manatomy_ book made complete sense. Nico’s ears went red, shifting his eyes away from the gay erotica at the same time that the guy, embarrassed, pressed his own book against the front of his jacket so Nico couldn’t see the cover. “Ah… ha…”

“Well, I’ll, uh. Um, I’ll let you get back to your… your work, uh…?”

“Nico.”

“Nico.”

But the guy didn’t move. Instead he studied Nico’s face for a moment, eyebrows pinched together. “Wait,” he said then. “Nico Di Angelo?”

Nico tensed a little, cautious. “Yes?”

But the guy didn’t break out into a snarl or anything. In fact, it was just the opposite. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. “You’re in New York!” he exclaimed. “Jeez, I thought you’d, you know, be at Camp Jupiter and everything after… well, everything. Are you visiting? Wait, no, you work here. Sorry. I’m not– Are you, ah–? Are you at Camp?”

Nico’s brain was still trying to fish for faces. “Kind of. I’m sorry, you’re…?”

“Oh! Sorry. Pollux. Pollux Mishchenko.”

Nico blinked as his memory jolted him back to the Battle of the Labyrinth. To a funeral pier. “You’re Mr. D’s son.”

Pollux gave a jerky nod.

“I’m sorry. I never actually met you, so I didn’t–”

“No! No, it’s totally fine,” Pollux assured him. “I understand. I just– I remember you from the Battle of Manhattan. You brought the skeleton army, right?”

Nico’s heart stammered. “You remember that?”

“Heck yeah! Who wouldn’t? That was amazing. You saved our butts, that’s for sure.”

Nico smiled. “It wasn’t that great. But thanks.”

Pollux shared his smile. “So. Rizzoli’s, huh?”

“Yeah. Gotta make money somehow, right? Speaking of which.” He started to stock the books.

“Yeah, I getcha. I just got off a back-to-back shift.”

“Where’re you working?”

“Jamba Juice, Starbucks, and Buy Buy Baby.”

Nico stopped stocking and looked at him incredulously. And here he thought the bags under the boy’s eyes were from stereotypical Dionysian partying. “You work three jobs?”

Pollux nodded. “It was just the two before, but my mom’s hospital bills keep getting more and more expensive the more and more terminal she gets.”

“Cancer?”

Pollux nodded again, then shook his head. “Sorry, I’m spewing my life story all over the place. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Are  _you_ okay?”

“I’m fine. Tired. Need more coffee.”

“Preaching to the choir,” Nico said with a chuckle. “You want to grab a cup with me? I get off in ten.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That’d be nice. I haven’t seen anyone from Camp since the end of the war.”

Nico didn’t want to think about the war. He pushed it as far away from his mind as possible. “So it’s a date then.”

Pollux froze at the phrase and snapped his eyes to Nico’s. “A date…?”

Nico shrugged. “Well, only if you want it to be. I mean, we  _are_  standing in front of gay pornography. It can only be a sign from the gods.”

That earned him a soft bout of laughter from the son of Dionysus and Nico felt himself smile again. “I thought… I’m sorry. I’m just surprised. I thought you were… well, for lack of a better word, a closet case?”

“Four years does a lot to a person.”

There was a long moment of silence, but when Nico glanced over his shoulder, Pollux was only watching him, dimples indenting his cheeks. “It’s a date.”


End file.
